Bumper year for JLT Specialty

JLT Specialty’s regional M&A team has reported a positive year with deal activity and performance growing by 40% in 2015 in the Midlands.

The Midlands M&A team, led by Adrian Lamasz, has worked on 81 completed deals during 2015.

A quarter of those completed deals were in the manufacturing and industrial sectors. JLT has also experienced a continuous flow of activity within both the aerospace and food and drink sectors, with JLT working on at least two deals in the food and drink, financial services and professional services sectors at any one time.

15% of deals completed by JLT’s Midlands team have come from the TMT (Technology Media and Telecoms) sector.

JLT has also seen an upturn in the building and ancillary sectors, with an increase in the number of deals from businesses within the property and construction supply chain.

Adrian Lamasz, said: “There have been a few surprises throughout 2015. During Q1 and Q2, M&A activity revved up on that of 2014, and the second half of the year saw a smoother flow in deal activity for us, which may be due to a combination of investors accepting the high pricing because of the mix of equity ‘dry powder’ (money) to deploy, aggressive bank lending, efficient deal management and close engagement with the acquisition targets.”

Adrian added: “From our perspective, JLT’s M&A growth has been down to close relationships with high quality private equity houses. Looking ahead, our focus for 2016 is to continually invest in relationships with our core clients and to strengthen our presence in the North driven from our Manchester office, which is our largest regional risk practice office in JLT.”

There has also been a positive upturn in secondary deals with private equity houses working closely together to sell shares in investments to one another with clusters of private equity houses doing repeat business, building on trust and past successes.

The JLT M&A team expect deal activity in 2016 to remain similar to that experienced in 2015, although the London market did cool throughout the winter months. Investment levels and opportunities are still high, indicating that now is a good time to buy or sell a business.